


Limited Time Offer

by RurouniHime



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Cat Burglars, Community: inceptiversary, M/M, No Spoilers, POV Arthur, Poor Life Choices, Quickies, Shopping, Thief Eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 01:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: It’s not that Arthur dislikes the real world aspect of dreamshare, exactly. It’s just that when there’s a heavier real world element, there are additional contingencies he has to plan for.





	Limited Time Offer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasingriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingriver/gifts).



> Written for chasingriversong (on Tumblr) for Inceptiversary 2017!

It’s not that Arthur dislikes the real world aspect of dreamshare, exactly. No job is strictly liminal; there’s always a lot of physical ground to cover and plenty of blood and bone measures to put in place before they can even think about going under.

It’s just that when there’s a heavier real world element, there are additional contingencies he has to plan for.

For instance.

1) Warren the architect and Biba the chemist will work together, but they refuse to share quarters. They hate each other. So Arthur spends half a day finding and reserving hotel rooms with kitchenettes on opposite sides of the city. There’s a marathon on and everything’s full. That was the point, of course—distraction—but still, inconvenient.

2) The mark has celiac disease, so an entire night is sacrificed to a string of encoded emails making sure the Somnacin won’t put the guy in the hospital.

3) A whole week is used up getting better blackmail on their client than the blackmail their client has on them. Obviously.

4) Their extractor Jonah is a diagnosed klepto with a personal grudge against locked doors. So Arthur buys a bunch of safes for everyone’s stuff and a couple extra as red herrings.

5) And then there’s Eames’ list of shit. Arthur spent half the day in REI picking out the best quality, most durable, and least eye-catching rappelling gear, and then Eames called when Arthur was loading up the trunk, _Darling, I’ve found a hole in the sole of my climbing shoe, you haven’t left the shop yet, have you?_ To which Arthur rolled his eyes and replied _Of course not, what do you need?_ and slammed his trunk shut and went back inside because what else was he supposed to do, make Eames scale a sixty-story building in his shabby loafers?

(Eames shouldn’t even be able to get away with this kind of monkeying around. He’s not tall, but he’s not a small man either, not wiry like Arthur or tiny like Ariadne. His shoulders should be too wide to squeeze through vents and his head is most certainly too big to fit through a damn door some days. But he’s the only one qualified to A) charm his way into a secure building so he can reach the inner courtyard, B) climb up to the mark’s aunt’s cousin’s penthouse from the outside and C) finesse the asshole of a lockbox there into relinquishing the last will and testament inside. _[Biba: can get in but can’t scale walls. Jonah: could crack box, but will just steal everything and add to hope chest. Arthur: can get A & B done (probably) but will get frustrated, throw lockbox thru window siding.])_

(Arthur makes a lot of lists.) 

Ergo, there is no way in hell that Eames is buying his own gear; the fewer connections people can make between the buyer and the user in the aftermath, the better.

But Eames has taken on all the physical forging for their little project (IDs and keycards and the like), and that’s one less thing. So Arthur grits his teeth, smiles winningly at a slew of pubescent REI employees, and dives back in to root around for shoes.

**

Ode to a moleskine:

_2:05am – security camera lag due to scheduled vid archive dump_

_2:15am – deep breathing, mindfulness meditation, goal focus_

_2:21am – guard rotation: 3rd, 14th, 20th, 46th, 52nd, 58th floors_

_2:23am – Spider Monkey reaches 58th floor_

_2:28am – lockbox recovered_

_2:31am – target doc scanned, uploaded, Spider Monkey begins descent w/ phys copy_

_2:34am – deep breathing, mindfulness meditation, goal focus_

_2:35am – hand-off from Spider Monkey to Godfather_

_2:37am – deep breathing, goal focus, mindfulness meditation if time/location allows_

_2:39am – hand-off from Godfather to Minecrafter_

_2:41am – Godfather reunites with Spider Monkey in service corridor, 1st floor_

_~14-minute interlude: deal with inconvenience caused by Spider Monkey’s shit~_

_2:55am – Prince of Thieves fucks us all to hell, breaks into lobby vending machine_

**

“I must say, Arthur,” Eames whispers, shutting the service entrance behind him, “you look nothing like Brando.”

“Damn it, Eames,” Arthur grunts and pushes him against the door of the first floor service corridor. “We have—” He checks his watch. “Thirteen minutes and thirty-three seconds until Jonah fucks us all to hell by breaking into the lobby vending machine, _take this off.”_

“My love,” Eames says, kissing him soundly, all tongues and teeth and still somehow able to speak _and_ unbuckle his harness _and_ sink back against the door like a distraught Lillian Gish, “had I but known of your predilections for catsuits—”

“Shut up,” Arthur pants, pushing Eames’ leggings down and pressing up against him. 

“Specifically me _in_ a catsuit—”

“Oh god.” Twelve minutes forty-one seconds. Fuck the real world. If they were dreaming, they’d have a zillion minutes for this. He grabs Eames’ chin, hitching up against him. “Stop. Talking.”

Eames, of course, does not. “I would never have put you through such agonies as purchasing your very own Kryptonite—”

“Eames, I intend to get off here and now whether you’re along for the ride or not.” All hope of stopping that train was lost around 2:08 when Eames sinewed his pert ass past the eighteenth floor. Arthur, as head of this gig, had the night-vision goggles and had been breathing very deeply and mindfully.

“Oh, darling.” Eames clicks his tongue, then in one fell swoop unbuttons Arthur’s vest, his fly, and his sanity, and burgles his way into Arthur’s pants. “That is one ride I simply refuse to miss.”

**

At 2:52am, the alarms go off.

“I will _eviscerate_ that fucker,” Arthur pants, sprawled half upright against the service corridor wall with his Armani trousers round his thighs and a fresh grasp on utter bliss.

“Mm, thus confirming that _I_ will also be getting off,” says Eames, still mostly in his catsuit and languidly mouthing Arthur’s jaw. “Go on; talk ruthless to me, darling.”

~fin~


End file.
